


One tiny crack (in the wall)

by Jenwryn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M, Harry Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagined what, he wants to ask. That your blessed Harry Potter might not make it? That the world as we know it might fracture and bleed? That we could fail? (That you, with all your guts and your genius, could fail?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	One tiny crack (in the wall)

**Author's Note:**

> AU post-DH, EWE, and what I like to call "Harry dies". Well, like mightn't be the right word. Shut up. It is what it is. Title from 8in8's [One Tiny Thing](http://music.amandapalmer.net/track/one-tiny-thing?permalink).
> 
> [ ](http://wicked-awards.livejournal.com/profile)

She has her head in her hands. It's a posture that makes him pause in the doorway, makes him put one hand to the cold frame and stop. He can feel his robes brush against his legs, as momentum means that they halt a little after he does. He can feel a lot of things, as he stands and looks at her. It's one of the reasons that he hates (doesn't hate) her like he does, of course.

He doesn't say anything.

It takes barely any time for her to notice him. Even with her head in her hands, even with her shoulders tight with what he can only imagine are unshed tears, she has spent too long on the hunt – too long on the run – not to notice him standing there, watching her.

“What,” she says, and it doesn't sound like her, her voice thick with all the things that he supposes she has never said (might never say). She pushes her hair back from her face, though; rubs a hand across her eyes, and the look that she gives him – impatient, impassive – is definitely one he remembers. Even if it is shadowed with exhaustion and rimmed with need.

He thinks of the things that he could say. Things that he should say. Things that slip into his brain, thanks to his education, his own nature, his position, his years as the lapdog of the Dark Lord and of Dumbledore. None of them, he realises, are going to change anything (never did change anything).

He doesn't speak, but he offers her a clean-pressed handkerchief from behind the buttons at his breast.

She purses her lips, then relaxes them. Breathes out, loud enough for him to hear. Her hand only shakes a little, as she takes his offering. The linen looks so pale against the dark of her face. Not just exhaustion, he thinks, but suntan and windburn and the universe having had its way with her. She isn't _that girl_ anymore, as she scrubs at her nose and dabs at her eyes; isn't that student.

She says, thank you, and knows better than to pass the kerchief back to him.

Even crumpled in her fist, bunched at her hip, it still looks stark against the grime of her clothes.

He wants to offer her a sink, a shower, whatever is available in the bathroom that he knows is there but which he hadn't inquired about. The Muggle at the desk had already looked at them strangely enough.

Beyond the window, the air conditioner hums. Traffic moves along the highway, sluggish and stilted. A woman's voice cries out in offended complaint, then laughs and moans.

“I don't know,” she says, the woman here, seated on the edge of the bed before him, “that I ever really imagined.”

Imagined what, he wants to ask. That your blessed Harry Potter might not make it? That the world as we know it might fracture and bleed? That we could fail? (That you, with all your guts and your genius, could fail?)

“I don't suppose anyone ever does,” he finally suggests.

He doesn't suppose that she would ever imagine herself here, at the end of the world as she knew it, with him, either. Pushed into his arms by the Weasley boy, no less, as though the lad had had the sense to know that a Snape might slip out, like a Malfoy might, but like a Weasley never could. Not with a Potter lying on the floor before them. Not with Hogwarts set with silent flames.

“They say there's a resistance in Cornwall,” she says.

“Indeed.”

The air-conditioner coughs and stops. Rattles, and starts again.

He shifts, propels himself forwards, puts his hand to the bathroom door and considers. Finds the handle worn beneath his touch. There are clean washcloths on the basin's edge and he rinses one under water, tepid on his fingers, and wrings it partly dry. She doesn't even twitch, when he squats before her, the motion making his battle wounds protest, and begins to clean her face.

“We can go in the morning,” he says.

“In the morning,” she agrees.

She tips her head to his. He thinks she might be inhaling the scent of him. He can feel the shift of her breath against his hair. Can feel the motion of it, as she drops her face back to his level. Soft. Shaken.

He cleans the dirt from her lashes.

(There might not be a morning.)


End file.
